President Pushing for Nationwide Ban on Flavored E-Cigarettes

Sep 11, 2019

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 11, 2019 (HealthDay News) — As concern grows over hundreds of lung illnesses tied to vaping, the Trump administration on Wednesday said it would move to ban flavored versions of electronic cigarettes.

Vaping is harming young people and “we’re going to have to do something about it,” President Donald Trump said at the Oval Office, The New York Times reported. He was flanked by Alex Azar, the secretary of Health and Human Services, and Ned Sharpless, M.D., the acting U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner.

Azar told reporters that details of a plan to phase out flavored e-cigarettes from the market will be announced during the next few weeks. In a tweet, he added that “new provisional data show that youth use continues to rise rapidly, and we will not stand idly by.”

The Trump administration has faced mounting political pressure to do something about the vaping issue. Last week, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he would ask for Sharpless to resign his post at the FDA if flavored e-cigarettes were not removed from the market, The Times reported. And on Monday, billionaire philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced he was donating $160 million to help further a ban on flavored e-cigarettes.